


days go on forever (i have not left your side)

by imagines



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Blade of Marmora Keith, Bottom Shiro, Established Relationship, Grief, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Non-Graphic Sex, Shiro POV, Unhappy Ending, everything that can go wrong does, hopeless situation, set roughly in season 4, the evil twin of Across the Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 02:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15854769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagines/pseuds/imagines
Summary: When the call from the Blades comes, it’s not Kolivan on the screen. That’s the first clue.“Hey, guys. Sorry to barge in on you like this, but we could use a little backup if you happen to be in the area.” Even though Keith’s grinning, even though his eyes spark like a bonfire, even though he loves a good battle, he’s out of breath and keeps looking over his shoulder as he speaks. That’s the second.The last one to ask for help in a fight is Keith, never mind the Blades. That’s the third.Something’s gone wrong with the mission. (Sheith Angst WeekDay 5: Almost)





	days go on forever (i have not left your side)

**Author's Note:**

> Last winter, I saw [this beautiful artwork](http://grandefinales.tumblr.com/post/166409513998/sing-the-anthem-of-the-angels) (warning for MCD) by [@grandefinales](http://grandefinales.tumblr.com) and couldn’t get it off my mind. So I wrote a story about it.

When the call from the Blades comes, it’s not Kolivan on the screen. That’s the first clue.

“Hey, guys. Sorry to barge in on you like this, but we could use a little backup if you happen to be in the area.” Even though Keith’s grinning, even though his eyes spark like a bonfire, even though he loves a good battle, he’s out of breath and keeps looking over his shoulder as he speaks. That’s the second.

The last one to ask for help in a fight is Keith, never mind the Blades. That’s the third.

Something’s gone wrong with the mission.

They’re not in the area, but the back of Shiro’s neck is prickling. “We’ll be there as soon as we can, Keith.”

“Thanks.” Keith drops to the ground, crouching over the camera. There’s only darkness behind him, and noise in the background—rhythmic banging like metal on bone, erratic high-pitched whistling, and an underlying roar growing louder by the minute. “And if you could hurry, I’d appreciate it. Transmitting coordinates now.”

They’re in the middle of organizing a supply route for the rebels between two planets with a long history of nasty disagreements, and taking off now would be a grave failure of diplomacy. But by the time Keith ends the feed, Allura’s already preparing for a wormhole jump. One look at her face tells Shiro he doesn’t need to justify his fear—she’s felt this terror herself. “I’ll send the ambassadors a message,” she announces. “They’ll just have to hold off arguing for now. This is an emergency.”

They rocket through the wormhole, exiting above a planet swarmed by Galra battleships. Allura throws the particle barrier up, but the ships are too occupied with firing on the planet to notice them yet. Some fortuitous cloud cover adds to their camouflage. “Where _are_ they?” Lance asks.

Shiro checks the coordinates again, hoping—but the numbers still match. He points at the planet, just visible through the mist. “Down there.”

“Shit,” Lance says. “So we form Voltron, right?”

Another feed opens. Keith has a large gash across his eyebrow, but his grin is as wide as ever. “Glad you could make it to the party.” He runs the back of his hand over his forehead. Blood smears across his skin, red and shining, and he wrinkles his nose when he looks at the mess on his hand. “It’s fine,” he says, looking straight at Shiro. “It’s not a bad cut. Head wounds always bleed like this.”

Shiro knows. Personal experience and all. He doesn’t like the thought of a scar slashed across Keith’s face, though. Keith wouldn’t be any less beautiful, but there’s nothing out there worth him taking that kind of pain. “You’ve got this,” he tells Keith. “Just tell us what you need.”

“Okay, so. You’re gonna have to come down separately or they’ll see you. Listen to me, you cannot form Voltron. You can’t waste time fighting the ships. I just need you to get me out of here.” Keith winces, and his hand moves out of the frame. It looks like he’s clutching his ribs, maybe his stomach.

Shiro hopes it’s his ribs. Hopes Keith's use of the singular means the others escaped. “Stealth approach. Got it. Anything else we need to know?”

Keith takes a deep, shaking breath. “Just that I love you. I’ll see you soon, babe. I hope you—”

Outside the windows of the bridge, there’s a huge bright flash on the planet’s surface, some kind of ground strike. Static crashes over Keith’s voice like tidal waves, wiping out whatever he’d hoped. The screen flashes white, Keith’s image shakes like an earthquake’s rolling the ground under his feet, and then the feed cuts out.

The rest of the team is staring at Shiro, silent, and he knows why. In front of anyone but Shiro, Keith keeps his emotions muted. He can’t stand to be watched as he rides those waves. Says it makes him feel like skinned knees, but all over.

In all their time together, Keith has never once called him _babe_ in front of other people, let alone said _I love you_ when they weren’t alone. This moment is significant, and Shiro can imagine a dozen reasons why, none of them auspicious.

He permits himself one jaw-cracking split second of panic, and then he turns away from the blank, useless screen to face his team. “We have to go. Now.”

Pidge can take the most direct route to the surface by cloaking her lion, but she’ll have to find a hiding place quick before the cloak shuts down. From there she’ll conduct any possible recon while the rest of the team splits up. The far side of the planet isn’t under heavy fire, so they’re going to sneak in from that side, get as close to Keith’s location as possible before they’re seen, and after that—Shiro guesses they’ll just have to fly like great big robot bats out of hell. It’s strictly an extraction, he informs the other paladins. No heroics, no unnecessary fighting. Just get in, grab Keith, and get the hell out. Allura managed to maneuver the ship behind one of the planet’s moons, so they know exactly where to aim when they’re coming back. Coran’s got all the firepower ready to go as soon as it’s needed.

There is nothing Shiro likes about this plan. Too much rides on chance, and there won’t be much opportunity for them to assist each other should anything go south. But Keith’s alone in this galaxy, wounded and scared, and the idea of leaving him—just the idea—

_Steady_ , Black purrs, curling around his pounding heart and cooling his burning mind. The smell of rain on desert earth fills the air as her spirit comes into Shiro, her familiar thrumming glow settling down in the center of his psyche as he enters Keith’s last known location into her console. She wonders at his apprehension; he lets himself imagine all the terrors that could lie ahead. Minus the one nightmare scenario he won’t allow himself to consider.

_Peace_ , she urges. _Patience_.

He almost smiles. “Throwing my words back at me, huh?”

She affirms it: _Necessary._

He nods, setting his hands on the controls, thinking he understands. “Because he needs me.”

Her dissent floods his soul, a red glare coloring her light. _Because you need him_.

“Don’t worry,” he says, as if he’s speaking to Black. “We’re gonna bring him home.”

Her vision slots into his, golden and prescient.

And then it’s liftoff.

Too soon, their luck sours. They’re in the air for hardly ten minutes when a Galra ship pounces, and the resulting firefight draws much too much attention.

“Shiro, _go!_ ” Hunk bellows. “We’ve _got_ this, you gotta move!” He and Allura slice up a battleship while Lance slings laser shots at fighter jets, opening a clear shot to a landing.

Shiro doesn’t know where Pidge is. Last he’d heard from her, she’d made it to the ground and had tucked herself and Green into a winding canyon, somewhere with caves big enough to hide a lion.

He _can’t_ leave them—but they’re all screaming at him to do just that, and Black’s roar fills his entire being, so he dives down and down through the path they’ve cut for him—

The blast from an ion cannon swats him out of the sky, flinging him to the dirt like so much scrap metal.

  


Shiro wakes up.

Black doesn’t, no matter how he coaxes her. The hollow space in his head where she should reside is filled by an emptiness that stretches vast and achingly cold, cramming itself into all the chambers of his mind. He is too accustomed to being inhabited; without her, he’s a vacant house.

“It’s okay,” he tells her, hoping she can still hear him. “We’ve been through this before. Everything will be all right.” Hating to leave her, knowing he must, he clambers out of the hatch and gets his first close look at the world on which he’s landed.

  


_They’re alone in Shiro’s room, looking at Keith’s tablet. “Xiomia S38’s not much to look at, but the rebels have been using it for equipment storage and as a refueling point while they expand within the Stranarus system. We can’t afford to lose it, so we’re gonna go make sure we don’t.” Keith has a map of the area pulled up, and he’s pointing out the little glowing blue dots that mark rebel outposts, as if he needs to convince Shiro why this new mission is important._

_As if Shiro’s opinion would make any difference. He resigned himself long ago to Keith’s split attention. “Makes sense,” he says, because it does; because Keith has never been wrong that his work in the Blades is vital to the success of everyone’s long-range goal. “When do you have to—when are you leaving?”_

_Keith looks down. “They really need us. Like, now. The shuttle’s coming to pick me up in six vargas. Just long enough to get a little sleep.”_

“ _Stay with me tonight.” Shiro lifts the tablet out of Keith’s hands and lays it gently on the shelf over his bed. When he turns back, Keith is staring at him._

“ _You just want company, or…” Keith clears his throat. “I mean, it’s been awhile.”_

“ _It has,” Shiro admits. It’s been too long, the tension between them taking root in doubt, sprouting into a tangled mass and threatening to suffocate them. He braces his right hand on the bed between them and reaches up with the other, cupping Keith’s jaw. Keith leans into the touch. With his heart battering itself against his ribs, hardly daring to allow himself to want this, Shiro brushes his thumb across Keith’s lower lip._

_In an instant he finds himself flat on his back, legs dangling off the side of the bed, Keith’s weight pinning his hips and Keith’s hands pinning his wrists at his sides. Keith’s gaze is considering, and dark with a promise Shiro hasn’t seen in months. All at once, Shiro is starving for him, the hunger he’s been holding at bay rushing in like a flash flood._

“ _Let me love you,” Keith implores. “I wanna be sweet to you.”_

“ _You always are.” Shiro doesn’t resist Keith’s hold on him. He never has, literally or metaphorically. He’s more than ready to be explored; to let Keith wander every canyon carved within him; to burn under the desert sun of Keith’s gaze. His archways tremble with the need for Keith’s fingertips to stroke their smooth walls; his caverns echo with silent pleas._

_Keith releases him, patting Shiro's knee. “You should get comfortable.”_

“ _Planning to rock my world?” Shiro’s teasing, but he knows what Keith can do, and he hopes Keith is planning on doing it to him tonight._

“ _Baby, I'm gonna rock your whole universe.”_

_Swinging his legs up, Shiro arranges himself temptingly, hands tucked under his head and thighs falling open. “You’re very confident.”_

“ _I have reason to be.”_

“ _Oh yeah?”_

“ _When I'm done with you,” Keith promises, settling between Shiro’s legs, “you're gonna know, all the way deep down in your soul, how much I love you.”_

_Shiro’s stomach plunges into a corkscrew, and he can’t conceal the hitch in his breath. “And how deep is that, exactly?”_

_Keith braces himself above Shiro and lowers his body until his mouth is almost touching Shiro’s. “As deep as you want it. As hard as you want it.” And he waits, lips parted and a wicked spark in his eyes, until Shiro starts to squirm under him. “Heh. Is there something you need?”_

_Shiro grips Keith’s waist, marveling at how his hands are still so big wrapped around Keith’s slender body. But Shiro can feel new layers of dense, solid muscle there, too. Keith is pantherlike, lean and deadly, and Shiro prepares himself to be eaten alive. “You,” Shiro breathes. “I just need you.”_

_He gets a kiss in return for his confession. Keith holds him by the chin, keeping Shiro’s head still, while he licks slow and filthy into Shiro’s mouth. He moans around Keith’s tongue. It’s the kind of kiss that feels like getting fucked, and Shiro says so._

“ _Yeah?” Keith says, nipping at Shiro’s bottom lip. “You like it when I make you all wet? When I open you up so I can get inside you?”_

_Shiro wants to say yes, more than anything, but his brain is short-circuiting and all he manages is a whimper and a shaky nod._

“ _Oh, sweetheart,” Keith whispers. “I know you need it. I’m gonna take good care of you.” He strips the both of them quickly, efficient under the time limit, but his hands are no less loving in their hurry._

_Six vargas, and they spend every moment joined in one way or another. Keith fucks him twice. Slowly the first time, cuddling Shiro close as he presses deeper, looking into Shiro’s eyes the whole time. “Wish I could stay here for the rest of my life,” Keith murmurs, and then he makes Shiro come._

_The second time is fast and desperate. Keith’s gasps sound close to sobs, and he keeps his eyes screwed shut. It’s all Shiro can do to hold onto him, fingers slipping in the sweat on Keith’s back. After, Keith presses his forehead against Shiro’s collarbone, trembling._

_They kiss each other’s hair, cheeks, wrists, stomachs. They tangle their fingers together and fall asleep for a couple of vargas, until the alarm on Keith’s tablet goes off._

“ _Incoming shuttle. Blade of Marmora. Ten doboshes out. Incoming shuttle. Blade of Marmor—”_

_Keith paws at his tablet, shutting off the voice. “Fuck,” he groans. “Already?”_

“ _I guess so, baby. Sorry. See you after, though, right?”_

_Keith smiles at that. “Count on it. Hey, think I could take you out when I come back? I heard about a planet with natural mineral hot springs. Safe for humans and everything. Just, we haven’t been on a real date in awhile…” He sounds like a nervous teenager again, trying to ask someone out for the first time ever, even though they’ve been together for years. Shiro will never get over how cute he is._

_Shiro grabs Keith by the hips and tugs him back down on top of him, kissing his neck until he starts giggling and shoving at Shiro’s face. “You know I’d go anywhere with you. That planet sounds fantastic.”_

“ _Okay,” Keith says. “All right. Cool.”_

“ _Very cool.” Shiro kisses him on the mouth, and Keith doesn’t hold back a moan, and they let it start to heat up again—_

“ _Incoming shuttle. Blade of Marmora. Five do—”_

_Keith slaps the tablet. “Damn it. I gotta get dressed.”_

“ _What a shame,” Shiro sighs. “Come home safe, okay?”_

“ _Of course. I’ll see you soon, baby.” Keith’s gaze is dark fire, an eternal flame that Shiro will see in his mind’s eye every night he has to fall asleep alone._

  


Xiomia S38 wasn’t much to look at to begin with, and now the Galra have blasted it to hell. If it was ever green and flourishing, they’ve annihilated every trace. The overcast sky shrouds the land in gray light, and a fine rain is falling. The bare earth has become a field of stinking mud that squelches horribly under Shiro’s boots when he leaps to the ground. Far above, he can just make out the lions—tiny darting sparks throwing themselves at titanic battleships.

“Pidge?” he calls. “Keith?” But the radio returns only the soft crackle of dead air. He brings up Keith’s coordinates on his visor display and gets moving.

It’s only about three klicks between Shiro and where Keith was last heard from, but crossing the terrain is slow going. The ground sucks at his feet, mud rising to his ankles, and every other step requires a blast of his jetpack to free himself. He’s concentrating so hard on not falling down that he doesn’t see the pair of drone soldiers until they’re almost on him.

The first hit catches him in the face, but the drone’s metal fist barely leaves a scratch on his visor. Reeling, Shiro catches his balance quick enough to send the drone flying with an uppercut from his Galra arm. It’s a lucky strike: the drone crashes into a boulder and crumples like foil.

But the second one is already aiming its blaster, and Shiro can’t dodge in time. The shot hits him in the abdomen at close range, too close for his armor to shield him, and it knocks him to his back in the mud.

He’s never taken direct laser fire before, and for a moment, staring at the darkening sky, he’s confused. Shouldn’t it hurt more than this? A burning sensation has already begun to grow at the site of the injury, an expanding globe of uncomfortable, tingling heat that makes him all too aware that there is a brand-new hole in his body that shouldn’t be there, but it feels almost bearable.

Shit, he can’t afford to lose focus. He cranes his neck up and sees that the remaining drone is advancing toward him, blaster leveled at his head. Shiro scrambles onto his knees, and as it lunges at him, he lights up his arm and swings it in a lethal arc. The drone clatters to stillness in the sopping muck, torso separated from legs, purple sparks flashing from its inner workings.

He doesn’t see any more drones around. Maybe they’re all in fighter jets now; maybe the rest of them were destroyed in whatever massive battle Keith had endured. Either way, it seems to be safe to proceed.

The mud clings to his boots and calves as he slogs through it, and it feels as if his legs are growing heavier. He’s more tired than he should be, given his usual stamina, and nausea has taken root in his stomach, but he’s just going to have to deal with it.

When he’s half a klick away from Keith’s anticipated location, Shiro’s radio crackles. “—nyone there?” It’s a faint, worn-out, and familiar voice.

“Keith! Keith, it’s Shiro, can you hear me?”

“—cutting in and ou—hear you, yeah. You okay?”

Shiro is dizzy and sweating, but that’s to be expected with this much physical effort, right? He presses his right palm to his stomach. It comes away smeared red. The rain washes it away in seconds. “I’m fine,” he tells Keith. “Where are you?”

“—don’t sound—” Keith says, skeptical. Shiro can fill in the blanks. “Do you see—cliff? At the base—big cave. I’m in—”

He squints through the rain. Yes, there’s a hulking black cliff off to his right, a little ways from where Keith’s coordinates were directing Shiro, stretching up so high he can barely see the top through a shroud of fog. “You’re in the cave?” Silence. “Keith, you still there?”

“Yeah—here. Sorry.”

Keith sounds breathless. Shiro doesn’t like that. “You all right?”

“—peachy. This cave—omantic getaway.”

Sarcasm’s a good sign, Shiro hopes. “Sorry to cut your vacation short.”

“—ink I’ll live,” Keith snarks. His laugh turns into a wet cough. “Shit,” Shiro hears him whisper. “I don’t—scare you, but—please hurr—”

“I’m on my way. Stay with me, Keith.”

The closer Shiro gets to the cliff, the clearer Keith’s voice becomes, until there’s hardly any static.

Shiro tries to keep him talking. “Hey, Keith. Wanna hear a joke?”

“Sure.”

“What did the half-Galra boy say to the cat?”

“Uh,” Keith says. “Am I the half-Galra boy?”

“You have to say ‘what’,” Shiro insists.

“Oh for crying out—okay, _what_?”

“Take me to your litter.”

Keith groans. “I thought you were supposed to make me feel better.”

“Okay, okay. Thinking of kittens not helping. Noted. How about this—when we get back to the castleship, let’s take a hot bath together. That would be nice, right?”

“After we get out of the healing pods,” Keith reminds him.

“Yeah, of course. After that— _shit_!” Shiro’s foot catches on a jagged rock buried in the mud. He goes down hard, pain ripping through his abdomen.

“Shiro, what happened? You okay? Shiro!” Keith is frantic, but Shiro’s struggling to breathe through the agony. Forming words is out of the question.

Finally he’s able to compose himself, though his voice is thin and strained. “I’m okay. Just tripped.”

“You scared the shit out of me there.”

“I know. Sorry. I’ll be more careful.”

The cliff is much farther away than it had appeared at first look, so gargantuan that it’s screwing with Shiro’s sense of distance, and the ground is growing steeper. Shiro has to claw his way up muddy hills, skidding in the slick mud on each descent. It’s hell on his wound, but thanks to the Galra, he’s become a master at blocking out pain.

After awhile, he realizes it’s been some time since he last heard Keith speak. “Hey, baby?”

Keith takes a long time to answer. “Yeah?” He sounds hazy, distant, and Shiro frowns.

“How are you doing?”

“Oh, you know. Never better.”

“I really want to know, Keith.”

Dead air again, and then Keith sighs. “No, you don’t.”

“What do you mean? I need you to tell me, baby.”

“You’re already coming as fast as you can. Right? So it doesn’t make a difference how I’m doing.”

Shiro can finally see a dark smudge at the base of the cliff—maybe it’s the cave Keith mentioned. The thought gives him a little burst of energy. Something’s finally going his way. “I think I’m close,” Shiro tells him. “Keep talking to me, okay? Stay with me.”

“Doing my best.”

The air takes on a metallic scent, but the readings from his suit don’t indicate any danger, so Shiro thinks nothing of it until he crests the next hill.

And sees the bodies strewn across a blood-slicked plain. They’re dressed in familiar skintight black suits. Most of the faces, he doesn’t recognize. Some of them, he does. They’re Blades, every one of them, and they’re beyond help. Before horror and grief can overwhelm him, Shiro finds the stone fortress within himself, locks himself inside, and lets its walls shield him. He reminds himself that Keith is in the cave ahead, far away from this catastrophe.

“Keith?” Shiro calls. “Keith, come in.”

“Shiro. I’m here. You good?” The words are bitten-off, as if Keith is gritting his teeth.

Shiro glances down at his stomach. The spreading dark patch makes him wish he hadn’t. He decides to keep his eyes front from now on. “Yeah, I’m fine. Holding up all right?”

Keith is quiet for a moment before he answers. “I’ve been better.”

Cold fear trickles down Shiro’s spine. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

“Don’t panic on me now, Shiro. Patience yields focus, remember? I just mean—well, I didn’t wanna say anything before, but—I’m not sure anyone else survived. I’m alone, that’s all I know. I got trapped in here when the ion cannon showed up. So I just want to not be alone anymore. You almost here?”

The dark spot on the cliff wall has sharpened, and yes, it’s definitely a cave. “I think so, yeah. I’ll be there soon.”

“Good. Baby, I’m so tired...just gonna rest a little, okay?” Keith’s breathing sounds strange, coming in short little pants.

“Not okay,” Shiro tells him. “Keith, I need you to keep talking to me.”

Keith’s laugh is soft, sweet, and all wrong for the situation. “It’ll be fine, Shiro. I love you.”

Shiro tries to pick up his pace, though the mud and his injury do their damnedest to slow him. “I love you too. Hang on for me, okay, Keith? I’m so close. I miss you so much, baby. I can’t wait to see you.”

Keith doesn’t answer.

This time, Shiro’s stone fortress isn’t enough to keep the panic out. The rain is falling hard now, and the stormclouds are so thick and dark, Shiro hasn’t caught a glimpse of the lions in awhile. He still hasn’t heard from Pidge, either. Even in the Galra prison, he’d never felt so alone.

He stumbles across the plain, weaving between corpses. His brain has shuttered itself, thoughts turning mechanical. There isn’t time to feel anything toward these awful heaps of crumpled black fabric. _One more time_ , he pleads with the universe. _Let me see him one more time_.

  


At the mouth of the cave, Shiro leans heavily against the damp rock of the cliff. His body is screaming for him to sit down, but he’s not certain that he would stand up again. He activates his hand, illuminating the interior in shades of electric violet. The entrance is empty, and the passage curves to the left up ahead, so he can’t see far inside. Shiro keeps his other hand on the wall for balance and takes slow, dragging steps deeper into the cave. “Keith?” he calls softly into the open air. His voice echoes, but there’s no response. The only sound is dripping water and the crunch of his boots on the rocky earth.

His vision swirls like river eddies, and his heart is a jackhammer in his chest. He can’t draw a full breath. The mysterious missing pain has kicked in, and when he touches his belly, the skin is drawn tight.

He takes one last glance out onto the surface of the planet. Though it’s foggy and fouled by death, at least there’s daylight out there. He wants to believe he’ll see daylight again. He tries to believe it. He can’t give up on himself already. He can’t give up on Keith.

Minutes pass as he works his way along the path. Breathing feels like betrayal, as every rise of his ribcage pulls at torn skin and muscle. He can’t guess what else in there is torn, but it’s probably something he needed in one piece.

He rounds another curve, and there, slumped against a pile of loose rocks—

No. It can’t be him. It has to be someone else. Shiro needs it to be _anyone_ else.

He drops to his knees beside the figure, mindless of his pain now, and peels the clinging hood back from the face.

Half-open eyes, a slack mouth, and a body still as clay. One eyebrow split open and smeared with dried blood. It still doesn’t make sense that this could be Keith. Keith is full of energy and always has a smile for Shiro. This face will not smile again. It’s all wrong.

He checks, although it’s hopeless. No breath. No pulse. He tears open Keith’s suit along his torso, as if finding the cause of injury might mean anything at this point. Huge purple bruises stain Keith’s flanks and hipbones. His legs are twisted weirdly. He looks like something picked him up and flung him into a wall, and Shiro knows that even if he had a med kit, even if he could perform field surgery, he wouldn’t be able to save Keith. It’s been too late for awhile now.

Shiro can’t stop shaking. He’s so cold. And so thirsty. He lies down next to Keith and gathers him into his arms. He’s gotta keep Keith warm. He tries his radio one more time. “Pidge? Anyone?”

But everything is quiet. He’s breathing like he ran a marathon. The pain spikes until he thinks he will scream, and then it’s gone. He’s supposed to feel peaceful, supposed to let go or whatever, but all he can think is that it’s not fair. Shiro would give his life to save Keith’s, but instead he’s giving it for nothing.

The light from his hand goes out, and the darkness takes him.

_there is nothing left of you  
_ _i can see it in your eyes_   
_sing the anthem of the angels  
and **[say the last goodbye](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB3pxBDZvf4)**_

**Author's Note:**

> Not gonna lie, this is way out of my comfort zone and writing it kinda fucked me up. But the idea like… _possessed_ me, and I had to make something out of it or I’d have just kept on thinking about it. So here we are. It’s actually been a WIP since February or so, but I’ve been resisting finishing it because…ow…
> 
> Literally all I listened to whenever I was working on this was “Anthem of the Angels,” “My Last Breath,” and “Lux Aeterna.” Ffuucckshdf.
> 
> About all the medical stuff--I researched the hell out of hypovolemic shock, internal bleeding, penetrating abdominal trauma, and pelvic fractures. But at the end of the day, I majored in English lit, not paramedic science, so I’m not gonna guarantee it’s 100% accurate. However, if you’d like some light reading on exsanguination, here are my favorite resources from this writing experience:
> 
> \- [The Writer’s Guide to Abdominal Trauma: Part 1](https://scriptmedic.tumblr.com/post/152464465681/the-writers-guide-to-abdominal-trauma-1)  
> \- [The Writer’s Guide to Bleeding, Shock and Trauma: Part 1](https://scriptmedic.tumblr.com/post/152304933522/the-writers-guide-to-bleeding-shock-and-trauma)  
> \- [Trauma and You, Part Two: Shock](https://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009148.html)
> 
> I don’t even know what else to say in this note, because I broke my own heart and I need to go read 100 fluff fics right the hell now. :( But you can come yell @ me [on tumblr](https://belovedsheith.tumblr.com)!


End file.
